The silver state. [volume] (Unionville, Nev.) 1870-1903, 1887-01-21
WHEN NIAGARA WAS DRY.
A Remarkable Day, Forty fea's Hk"'
I'm the History OF the Great e"'
aract.

an the History OF the Great Cat
aract.
Thirty. nine years ago next SPRING
said an old resident of this village, "a
sight was witnessed at the Falls oil Nj
.oara that had never been seen before, AZ
least by people then on earth, and 10 all
probability such q sight will never be
witnessed again. It was nothing more
or less than the running dry OF the great
cataract. or at least so nearly dry that 1t
is no exaggeration to call it so, in which
condition the falls remained for one
whole day.
"The Winter OF lS4S had been one OF
the coolest on record and such ice has
never been known on Lake Erie since, /
guess. as formed that season. 1t was OF
enormous thickness. 1t was quite late
in the Spring before the ice was loos-
ened, even about the shores OF the lake.
One day-I think it was near the end OF
April-a very stiff northeasterly wind
came up, and its force was so great that
it moved the great fields Of ice, then en-
tirely separated from the shores, up the
lake. piling the foes in great banks as
they moved. The sight OF those ice
banks is described by those who wit
messed it as one of the most awful grand
eur. Toward night the wind changed
suddenly to the opposite quarter, and
grew into terrible gale from that direc-
tion. The lakes surface was packed
with miniature icebergs, and these were
hurried back by the gale with such tre-
mendous force that an impenetrabie dam
was formed in the neck of the lake from
which Niagara river flows, and the great
current Of water which finds its way
from the lake into the rushing channel OF
that stream, to be dashed over the gigsn-
tic precipice OF the falls, was so held in
check that no more than onequarter of
its usual volume could find passage
through the immense pack Of ice.
"As this pack was stubborn, it was
naturally but a short time before the falls
had drained nearly all the water out of
the river This, of course, occurred dur
ing the night, aud we people who lived
in Niagara village knew nothing Of the
phenomenon until next morning. | re-
member tnat | awoke very early that
morning with the sense of something ex-
-csedingly strange expressing me. TWAS
some time before | discovered that the
feeling came from the fact that the cat
aract was almost missing jumped out
of bed, and on leaving the house found
that scores of others had been awakened
by the same circumstance, and were hur.
rying toward the falls to see what the
trouble was. We found that the great
Niagara Falls was about one quarter OF
ats former volume.
"We had not heard Of the trouble at
Lake Erie, and the terrible thought that
the falls were running dry created feel
ing OF alarm not easily imaginable. The
American Channel had dwindled to a
creek in comparison with it's original
proportion, while the British Channel
resembled some ordinary river in the
drouth of August. Goat Island was as
big as two Goat Islands, as the water
had shrunk from every side of it, leaving
wide expanse OF wet, Shiny. jagged
rocks which no eye in that vicinity had
ever seen before The bed of the Cana
dian rapids far out into the stream, was
dry, as was the space betweed the lower